Product Idea: Real-time re-living the moon landing

May. 24 2014

I was only 7 months old when Neil Armstrong became the very first man to walk on the moon. I don't remember it very well.

Today I was reminded that most of what we see of the moon landings are highlights. 10-second little clips. I would like to know what the entire 8 days were like. I'm sure there are audio and video recordings of the entire thing. All of NASAs recordings are public domain, so they must be available somewhere.

Here's my thought for a product. A kit that includes audio and video recordings and other stuff to help you re-live the entire 8 day experience. An audio recording that we would listen to in real time, along with TV inserts of broadcasts as they happened. Plus 1960s recipes and other stuff so a group of people could simulate the entire thing. A group of people could go on "a vacation to 1969" and spend a week living like it was July 1969.

Yes, 8+ days is a very long time but imagine if:

It was done near some other vacation place and they arrange it so that at key times you are near a TV to watch the news. Some days would be more "sit at the TV watching the action" and other days would be unrelated activities but everyone would watch the nightly news together at 6pm to see what Walter Cronkite was telling everyone.

or

They make a simulator so that you are Neil Armstrong, or at least the Flight Director, going through the motions for all 8 days.

or

YouTube could livestream all the audio/video for 9 days straight and everyone could just tune in. All over the world people would "play along", making it a shared experience everyone could enjoy. (It would be like The Yule Log, only a week+ long event that we do every July).

I haven't put a lot of thought into this. There are many logistical challenges. Plus, it could be extremely expensive to do it right. That's why I think a kit that lets people to it themselves during the summer would make more sense.

Anyway... I want to put it out there in case anyone has comments or thoughts about how to make it happen.

(If I was writing about it now, I wouldn't have quipped about the Lance/Neil Armstrong confusion that seemed funny at the time, but much less so now that the cyclist has confessed his drug use and subsequently lost all my respect.)